Powershell: Moving named files to their corresponding folder

Question

enter image description hereI have a folder which has a bunch of files named: WBF123456, WBF135464, etc. These files need to be moved to the corresponding folder. At the moment I am using the commandline to manually enter the numbers of each file so they get moved, using this code:

$files = $args[0]

mv O:\SCAN\SecSur\*$files.pdf O:\SPG\G*\*\*$files

How can I automate this process? It needs to identify the number in the filename, then move it to the folder containing the same number. Any help would be great. Thanks.

I need to get the files on the left, inside the corresponding folders on the right.

Answer 1

Maybe the below solution will help you. You should change $origin_path and $destination_path

    $origin_path= "C:\Users\geralexgr\Desktop\kati\files"
    $destination_path = "C:\Users\geralexgr\Desktop\kati\folders"
    Get-ChildItem $origin_path -Recurse -Include *.txt | ForEach-Object {
        $folder = [regex]::Matches($_.Name, "\d+(?!.*\d+)").value
        Move-Item $_.FullName $destination_path\$folder
    }

The example will place files under the folders that match the numeric regex.

After powershell execution file WBF12 gets inside 12 folder

Answer 2

Apparently the files to move are .pdf files, so what you can do is get a list of those files in the source folder and then loop over that list to create (if needed) the destination subfolder and move the file there.

Try:

$destinationRoot = 'O:\SPG\G\SomeWhere'  # enter the root folder destination path here

$filesToMove = Get-ChildItem -Path 'O:\SCAN\SecSur' -Filter '*.pdf' -File
foreach ($file in $filesToMove) {
    $numName = $file.BaseName -replace '\D+'  # leaving only the numbers
    # create the target path for the file
    $targetFolder = Join-Path -Path $destinationRoot -ChildPath $numName
    # create that subfolder if it does not already exist
    $null = New-Item -Path $targetFolder -ItemType Directory -Force
    # now, move the file
    $file | Move-Item -Destination $targetFolder
}

---

Seeing your screenshots, this might be a better approach for you.

$destinationRoot   = 'O:\SPG\G\SomeWhere'  # enter the root folder destination path here
# get a list of target folders for the files to be moved to and create a lookupHashtable from their names
$targets = @{}
Get-ChildItem -Path $destinationRoot -Directory | Where-Object {$_.Name -match '(\d+)'} | ForEach-Object {
    $targets[$matches[1]] = $_.FullName  # key is the number, value is the directory fullname
}

# get a list of files to move
$filesToMove = Get-ChildItem -Path 'O:\SCAN\SecSur' -Filter '*.pdf' -File | Where-Object {$_.Name -match '\d+'}
foreach ($file in $filesToMove) {
    $numName = $file.BaseName -replace '\D+'  # leaving only the numbers
    # see if we have a target folder with that same number in its name
    if ($targets.ContainsKey($numName)) {
        $targetFolder = $targets[$numName]
        Write-Host "Moving file $($file.Name) to $targetFolder"
        $file | Move-Item -Destination $targetFolder
    }
    else {
        Write-Warning "Could not find a destination folder for file $($file.Name).."
    }
}